


Not all it's chalked up to be

by Bumblie_Bee



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, MJ smells explosives and puts up disallowed posters, May stockpiles backpacks, Ned thinks the entire situation is brilliant, Peter is so done at times in this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-15 19:20:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29563884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bumblie_Bee/pseuds/Bumblie_Bee
Summary: Peter would easily admit having the powers he’d gained was beyond amazing; the super strength made his backpack weightless, his eyes functioned perfectly well without his glasses, the inhaler he’d been near enough tethered to his whole life was coating itself with crumbs at the bottom of his bag, but very occasionally, having them wasn’t quite all it was chalked up to be.If gaining superpowers after being bitten by a genetically modified radioactive spider had been chalked up at all, that was.In which Peter stresses, May worries, and Ned tries his best to support his no longer fully human best friend.
Relationships: May Parker (Spider-Man) & Peter Parker, Ned Leeds & Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 6
Kudos: 71





	Not all it's chalked up to be

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, if you see any typos, let me know!
> 
> (Also thanks to Seekrest for agreeing that my original ending sucked so I could fix it :) ) 
> 
> Find me on tumblr at [bumblie-bee](https://bumblie-bee.tumblr.com/)

Of all the things that Peter had expected to happen after the spider bite, it wouldn’t have been what did. A rash, maybe, the itchy red mark on his arm, definitely.

Falling ill that evening had been terrifying, the fever high enough to muddle his thoughts and leave him weak and sweaty in Ben’s arms even worse, but none of it had been entirely unexpected.

There had been a time in the early hours of that morning when he’d been nauseous and trembling, caught in the throes of a headaches so vicious he’d been almost blinded by the pain, and through his near dangerous fever, certain he was going to die from whatever venom radioactive, genetically modified spiders make, but that hadn’t happened.

Something much more unexpected had.

Something that would have made him squeal over the genius of a scientist who had engineered the thing if their incompetence at keeping their experiment contained hadn’t very nearly killed him.

Something that was undeniably the coolest thing that had ever happened to him, and likely ever would.

And yeah, having the powers he’d gained was beyond amazing; the super strength made his backpack weightless, his eyes functioned perfectly well without his glasses, the inhaler he’d been near enough tethered to his whole life was coating itself with crumbs at the bottom of his bag, but very occasionally, having them wasn’t quite all it was chalked up to be.

If gaining superpowers after being bitten by a genetically modified radioactive spider had been chalked up at all, that was.

***

After a night of spider venom induced feverish vomiting followed by two more caused by his overstimulated brain, Peter kind of assumed that nothing would taste quite as bad as the inside of his mouth, but it turned out he was wrong.

The gagging strained his long abused stomach muscles, but thankfully nothing came up and all that ended up in the sink than what was already in his mouth. He spat a few more times, fought the urge to wipe his tongue clean on his flannel along with his face, and then stuck his head out the bathroom door.

“May, what’s happened to the toothpaste?” he shouted, only flinching a little at the echo of his own voice, and then not at all when May’s yelled back from the lounge.

Improvement. 

“What do you mean? It’s in the cup, isn’t it?”

“Well, yeah, but it tastes really bad.”

“What?”

“I said it tastes bad!” he repeated a little louder, shooting an accusatory glare at the tube in his hand. For a good while, there was no reply, and he was just starting to wonder if the super hearing was messing with his measure of his own voice already when May appeared in the doorway, her eyebrows furrowed into a bemused frown and a badly contained, amused sort of smirk just about quirking her lips.

“Yeah, I heard what you said, just… Are you sure you didn’t use shaving foam or something? Soap maybe?”

Peter’s nose wrinkled in insult, pushing the glasses he no longer needed up until the thick plastic touched the skin between his brows.

“What, No? May, I know what toothpaste is.”

May flapped a hand dismissively, her lips pinched like she was trying hard not to smile at his affronted tone.

“Well I don’t know, Peter. You’ve had a rough few days. I thought maybe that fever had fried your brain or something.”

Peter huffed and rolled his eyes, but honestly, he’d had the same thought when he’d first woken up to find the duvet stuck to his palm as though by glue a few nights ago, so he couldn’t really blame her for thinking he might have finally lost it.

“Seriously, May,” he whined despite himself, “there’s something wrong with it.”

“Peter…"

“Look, try some?” He held out the tube, and May tilted her head at him for a second as though trying to work out whether to humour him or not before she obliged. She grimaced a little as she licked it off her finger, but no more than would be normal for someone eating a blob of pure cool mint toothpaste.

“Tastes like toothpaste to me.” 

Peter frowned at her as she cleaned off her finger with none of the trouble he’d had and then, suddenly doubting this wasn’t all a huge fever dream after all, he taped his finger to the tip of the tube just enough to mark his skin with the stripy blue and white paste.

It tasted bad almost worse the second time around.

“Ugh, nope,” he gasped as he darted to spit into sink, trying his best not to gag.

May winced behind him, her concerned exhale loud to his sensitive ears, and stepped into the room to rub his back as he tried to get the taste from his mouth again. When he was done, it moved to his forehead, first her palm, then back of her fingers as she checked for fever.

There wasn’t one, Peter knew so, and although the crease between her brows didn’t loosen any, May seemed to agree because she let her hand drop to cup his cheek instead. The concern Peter had got very used to seeing over the past few days was back in her eyes as she studied his.

“Maybe you should go back to bed,” she suggested gently as one would with a toddler inconsolable over a broken cookie as she looped her arm around him and started to lead him to his room. “Get that flu properly out of your system, yeah?”

***

The super strength was useful, Peter would admit that easily. After years of lugging books around school, carrying them on the subway there and back for homework, it was a leisure to feel like he only has a feather on his back. He wasn’t a fit sort of teenager, spent more time reading and repairing the loot of his dumpster dives than playing sport, might have done even if he hadn’t been cursed with poor eyesight and barely functioning lungs, and so his muscles hadn’t really been much of a thing before the bite.

Peter always thought it was a bit ironic that it was usually those with the books didn’t have the brawn to carry them. It was now a bit ironic that he had all this strength and nothing much to do with it.

“Oh _shit_.”

The cracking of splintered wood probably echoed louder in Peter’s head than the hallway, but either it or the crash as he dropped the door to the floor in alarm must have been noisy enough to alert Ben that something was amiss because the TV in the lounge paused. Which, well, Peter couldn’t exactly have hidden his error from them anyway, he supposed. 

“Peter? Are you okay?”

“Um.”

He was still alternating between staring at the broken wood on the floor and the gaping hole leading into his room when Ben turned up.

“Oh, Jesus, Pete. It didn’t fall on you, did it?”

Mutely, Peter shook his head. It wasn’t a lie because it hadn’t fallen at all even if it had landed on his toes after he dropped it. He was almost certain even his toes did more damage to the wood than the door did to him though; he was pretty indescribable nowadays.

“Good, good,” Ben said distractedly, and then bent down to lift the door up and prop it against the wall. The hinges were still attached, glinting brightly in the hall lights, and both were still firmly screwed to fragments of the frame Peter had inadvertently ripped it from. Ben’s brows were raised as his calloused fingers inspected the damage.

“Huh, wood’s sheered clean off. Guess you don’t know your own strength, bud.”

Peter tried very hard not to flinch.

“Sorry.”

Beside him, Ben laughed softly. “I wasn’t really blaming you, Pete, there’s no way you could have done this. This place is just a shit hole, is all.” He gave Peter a comforting nudge and then frowned. “Wait, maybe don’t tell May I said that.”

***

The creak of the door opening didn’t wake him, he’d given up on sleep a long while ago, but he had been deep enough in his own head in an attempt to block out the ambush on his senses that it startled him into a full body flinch that grated his skin against each individual thread of his bedding. He heard his muscles move, the relentless whoosh of his breathing hitch at the pain it caused, and the thunder that was his heart pick up with the stress.

The whimpered groan he didn’t intend to let out sounded like the roar of a jet engine to his oversensitive ears, mixed with the influx of car engines and gargling pipes and shout loud chatter from the three floors below and four above and he clenched his jaw against the renewed onslaught of input. 

Even with his eyes shut, the light seeping through from the hallway stabbed at his brain, and the calloused hand felt enough like sandpaper against his forehead when it appeared he couldn’t help but flinch away.

“Hey sorry, bud,” Ben whispered from so close beside him Peter could hear his heart pounding like a drum being played beside his ear. “I was just checking your temp.”

“’s fine.” Peter’s own voice ground at his throbbing head like a cheese grater taken straight to his brain and he bit down on his lip in a vain attempt at distracting himself from the recent addition to the barrage of external input.

“Yeah, I know, no fever. Feels a little low, actually.”

Peter forced himself to give the tiniest of grunts in acknowledgment although he knew that already. He was freezing, had been since he woke up in the middle of the night a few weeks ago and found himself able to hear a conversation down on ninth and see more in the darkened room than in broad daylight with his glasses on and feel each individual silky soft thread of the Ironman blanket Ben and May had placed over his fever sticky body earlier that evening.

The bed dipped a little as Ben sat down beside him, the springs screeching as they coiled, and even that slight tilt of his mattress moved him enough against the rough fibres of his bedding that a tear, hot and salty, burnt its way onto his cheek and another whimper roared against his ears.

Ben’s hand rubbed gently over his shoulder blades in attempt to comfort even though they both knew it was futile.

No.

It was worse than futile; the cotton was painfully rough as it brushed against his skin, Ben’s palm burning even through the fabric, and Peter couldn’t help but pull away again.

“Sorry, Pete,” Ben whispered, and he sounded so sad Peter wasn’t sure if his voice hurt his head or his heart more. “I got you some Tylenol, try and kick this migraine a little so you can get some sleep, hmm?”

It wasn’t a migraine and the tablets Ben was offering would do as much good as skittles, but Peter nodded and dragged himself a little more upright to swallow them for Ben’s benefit. He concentrated on keeping his breathing steady rather than on the gurgling of the water he washed them down with entering his stomach or the rustling of his lungs or the canned laugher of the TV booming in the apartment below, and then when he was sure they were going to stay down, he let his head rest back against the pillow.

“That’s it, well done.”

Peter nodded, swallowed, and then another round of canned laughter from three floors below grated at his brain and brought another wave of lava-like tears to his tightly closed eyes. He winced out a sob, and instinctively rolled over and buried his face against Uncle Ben’s thigh.

The fabric of his jeans was rough against his face and the palm he’d clamped over his ear only amplified the relentless gargling of his body and roaring of his breathing, but the hand that carded into his hair was just about okay if Peter focused on the gentle feeling rather than the accompanying sound of raking as the fingers trailed through his bed-knotted curls.

Even with his eyes tightly closed and pressed against Ben’s leg, the glow of the streetlight through the curtains was a supernova exploding against his retinas, and in his mouth he could still taste the bitterness of the tablets like they’re a powder on his tongue, and if he concentrated, he could smell the sickening char of steaks being grilled at the restaurant down the road.

Another whimper, and more tears soaked into the abrasive denim against his face.

It wasn’t always this bad, most of the time it was almost bearable, but some days it seemed his senses were dialled way past the eleven they now idled at, and Peter was yet to find a way to solve that.

***

Okay, so Peter could stick to things. Like, _stick_ stick.

It wasn’t like his hands were tacky with grime or sweat or the six pop tarts he’d snacked on when he got home, they were just naturally adhesive now, enough so that he could quite literally climb the walls of their small apartment if he wanted to, and weirdly, despite having no idea how, he could control it.

He just thought about it the same way he would about lifting a leg or holding something in his hand and it happened.

Or most of the time it did, anyway.

“You trying to hatch that, bud?”

Peter startled at his desk, very nearly knocked his phone onto the floor with his elbow, and when he glanced up, he found Ben hanging in his doorway, leaning against the recently repaired frame.

“It’s not an egg, you know. Wrong dairy item.” The amused sort of smile he was wearing didn’t fade when Peter rolled his eyes and grunted in reply.

“Eggs aren’t dairy, Ben,” he muttered, tired and fed up, “And you can’t hatch a food egg. They’re not fertilised.”

“That’s good to know, glad your fancy science school is teaching you something. Do you want a spoon to go with it?” he added when Peter didn’t reply.

“No, I’m not eating it.”

“Oh. Then why are you holding it?”

“Because I’m…” Peter paused, slightly regretting not taking up Ben’s offer for a spoon. “Because I have to draw it. For- for art. It’s homework.”

“I see.” Ben nodded but the confused pucker between his brows didn’t smooth away entirely as though maybe he’d noticed the lack of paper and pens on Peter’s desk. “Is carrying it around all evening part of your homework too? Practise for an egg and spoon race?”

Peter let out a tired, slightly hysterical laugh at the awkwardly attempted joke more out of distress than amusement. “Ben please, I’m… I’m trying to work.”

The second that passed before Ben sighed passed like a lifetime. “Alright buddy, message received,” he sighed, sounding a little sad behind his softness. “Let me know if you want anything, okay.”

“Thanks.” Peter gave him a tired smile that faded as soon as his door his closed.

He dropped his head onto his folded arms, gave his hand and the resolutely attached yoghurt pot another useless shake, and then huffed into jumper at his life.

***

“You didn’t break your glasses _again_ , did you?” May groaned as she hurried into the kitchen in her scrubs, frowning at Peter over the top of the box of Froot Loops he was midway through devouring. The loaded spoon paused midway to his mouth, and slowly Peter’s other hand came up to prod the air where his glasses should be.

Not exactly subtle, he’d admit.

May didn’t miss the hand that flicked towards his temple either and raised a brow.

The truth was though, it didn’t really seem to matter all that much to his eyes whether he was wearing the now absent glasses or not; his vision was perfect without them, seemed to be able to adjust reasonably well with them, and he now knew he must have forgotten to put them on like he normally did just to hold up appearances but until May had mentioned it, he really hadn’t been aware.

“I, um, I can see better without them now,” he told her entirely honestly, but judging by the hands that went to her hips and the one still-quirked eyebrow, May didn’t believe that in the slightest. 

“Really.”

“Um, yeah.”

“Since when?”

“Since… I don’t know, it’s been gradual.”

May looked at him for a long moment and then sighed heavily and leant back against the counter.

“Maybe this is why you’ve been getting those headaches,” she said, grimacing.

That caught him out a little, simply because he hadn’t realised she’d been aware of those. He’d been trying to hide them. Not that they’re to do with his eyes exactly, more to do with his brain suddenly having an entire block’s worth of sound and smells to process, but forcing his vision to focus through lenses no longer suited to him all the time was tiring enough that he’d agree it probably wasn’t helping.

“Yeah, maybe,” he agreed lightly, crossing his fingers beneath the table so the lie doesn’t count and giving the coagulating loops in his bowl a prod with his spoon to give him somewhere else to look.

May nodded in thought. “Okay, don’t wear them if you don’t want to but take them to school just in case you still need them to see the board. I’ll call the optician’s once they open and make you an appointment for this afternoon.”

Peter looked up so violently from his soggy cereal in alarm his old body would have definitely ended up with whiplash.

“What, no? May, I don’t need a new set.”

May’s expression scrunched in disbelief. “Do you not remember the conversation we just had?”

“I can see fine like this.”

Over the cereal box, Peter watched her roll her eyes as she huffed a scoffed laugh.

“Says the boy who didn’t realise trees had leaves until he was nine,” she said pointedly, giving him a look over her own glasses.

Not having much of a response to that, Peter stabbed at his mushy Loops with his spoon and resigned himself to having lost.

Seven hours later, Peter found himself frowning at the optician out of the corner of his eye as he read through lines of letters and tried to make it down to where a normal person should be able to. It’d probably be easier if his only two points of reference weren’t short sighted to the extent of thinking the teacher was just dancing in front of the board for the first few years of elementary school and super-powered super-sight, but well, he was getting used to Parker luck by now. 

***

As a teenager, Peter was hungry. He’d hoped, at first, that maybe it would be the start of his growth spurt, but judging by his measly five foot five stature, his body hadn’t quite cottoned on to that.

After the bite, he wasn’t just hungry; he was ravenous.

At first, he, and May and Ben, had just thought it was a result of spending three miserable days where more puking than eating occurred, but then as the weeks passed, it seems that wasn’t true.

“Another piece for Petey-Pie?” Ben asked, already sliding another slice of dessert onto Peter’s plate before Peter could inevitably agree. That was the third slice of the meal and came after two portions of lasagne and a plate of fries, and honestly, Peter still wasn’t full. It took a lot to keep him full now, but if either Ben or May thought anything suspicious of it, they hadn’t said.

Honestly, he kind of hoped his appetite would calm down at some point, it wasn’t exactly convenient to need so much food, but he wasn’t optimistic. Super-bodies needed a super amount of fuel, he guessed.

“Mm thanks Ben!” Peter grinned, picking up his fork again and breaking the lid off the pie. Red filling spread from within, cooked cherries spilling over the bowl.

Ben laughed at his enthusiasm. “You’re welcome kiddo, got to feed that monster of a stomach so you can grow up big and strong.”

“Best step on it honey,” May said, ruffling his hair as she passed and took her seat back at the table, adding another scoop of ice cream to his bowl for good measure. “You’ve got a way to go on the big part of that.”

Peter rolled his eyes at her comment and tucked into his third slice of pie, letting the buttery pastry melt on his tongue and savouring the sweet cherry and apple mix and contently listening to Ben and May’s light-hearted bickering as he ate.

***

(and then there came the day when Peter’s life changed forever for a second time, when he broke on the ground in a puddle of red and swore he would be better)

***

The tingle at the nape of his neck took Peter longer to notice than the rest of his powers, simply because there hadn’t been a reason for him to notice it before. 

A danger sense didn’t do an awful lot when there wasn’t any danger around.

Peter had noticed it that night though, had found his hand darting to the back of his neck at the bolt of energy so strong and urgent it hurt before he could stop himself. He remembered Ben stopping in his tracks too, turning to him and worriedly asking what was wrong in the second before a man darted out of the shadows and held a gun to his head.

It had been screaming at him when the gun went off.

It was screaming at him now.

With his mind elsewhere, distracted by grief and exhaustion and half made plans, Peter turned on instinct, bringing his hand up to shove something away before he even realised what he was doing, and flinched violently at the resulting crash.

“Ow! What the fuck?”

When Peter opened eyes he didn’t remember closing, he found a startled Flash sitting against a suddenly dented locker block, his eyes wide in terror and one hand held to his likely aching head. he didn’t look injured really, just scared, but Peter felt a sudden nausea rising in his throat when he realised what he had done.

With his heart throbbing in his throat with dissipating adrenaline and his chest tight with panic, Peter took one last look at the kid he’d accidentally hit and the crowd that had formed and, bolted from the scene.

“Penis Parker’s finally cracked,” he heard Flash laugh as he ran around the corner in the direction of the nearest bathroom, the words loud and painfully sharp over the sound of his own pulse drumming in his ears.

They hurt too, their implication and the mirth with which they were said, but Peter couldn’t bring himself to disagree. 

***

The explosion rattled through the lab loud enough that Flash yelped, Betty fell off her stool, and Mr Richardson snapped the whiteboard marker in two with his fist.

The two halves of the pen hit the floor with a clatter that echoed almost as loudly in the suddenly silent room.

“Is everyone okay?”

A chorus of stunned confirmations filtered back, and Peter muttered along as he very, very subtly tried to check on the condition of his desk. It didn’t look to be on fire or smoking noticeably, which was certainly a good start. Or maybe a least bad ending, he supposed.

“What was that?” Betty asked as she picked herself up off the floor, wrinkling her nose and the acrid smell filling the air. “It smells like burning.”

“It smells like explosives,” Michelle murmured under her breath, shooting Peter a suspicious glare out of the corner of her eye that made him very, very sure she knew exactly where the noise had come from.

Ducking his gaze for fear of melting under the intensity, Peter gave his desk another quick scrutinise just to check she hadn’t noticed something he’d managed to miss.

Still not smoking.

Still not on fire.

Just a little charred around the edges of the drawer, but surely Michelle didn’t have good enough eyesight to see that.

Mr Richardson didn’t notice it when he walked around the lab in search of the what had exploded when no one could tell him anyway, so maybe she’d just pinpointed the sound.

Maybe.

Hopefully.

She didn’t dob him in anyway, so she couldn’t have noticed anything that gave her concrete evidence of his guilt. Or maybe she had, and she was just cool with the idea of him making explosives in the lab, whether by mistake or not.

Despite his relief that she wasn’t about to get him kicked out of school, Peter kind of hoped she wasn’t for everyone’s sake.

Later, when Mr Richardson was busy checking the supplies cupboard in the corner of the room and the rest of the class where chattering excitedly and Michelle’s interest was back in her book, Peter subtly slipped his web-fluid 1.2 prep notes from inside his folder and drew a line through the nitric acid.

Maybe mixing that with toluene hadn’t been his smartest of ideas.

***

“Jesus Christ, Peter, what happened?”

Peter winced at the pure horror in his aunt’s tone as it resonated over clang of a dropped pan falling into the sink, then again when the movement pulled at his injured face. It wasn’t as though he wasn’t aware of just how bad he looked, he’d spent a good hour staring dismayed at his reflection in a puddle in the back alley he’d left his backpack in while he tried to straighten his nose, but he’d been hoping he wouldn’t have to see May until the morning when he’d have at least started to heal.

He’d thought she would be at work, but apparently not.

“I’m alright, I just… I tripped down the stairs is all.” He brushed her hand away when she tried to take hold of his chin but didn’t fight when she steadied him by his shoulders so she could examine him in concern. Frowning, she winced in sympathy at the bruising and cuts, and they both grimaced when she reached up to gently probe his swollen nose. Unable to stop himself, Peter hissed through his teeth when her fingers caught the break.

“Sorry, sorry. I’m pretty sure that’s broken, though, honey,” she told him, her brow pinched and her eyes heavy.

Peter nodded, then regretted it when his face throbbed in protest. “I know.” He sniffled a little, rubbed at the fresh trickle of blood her probing had inadvertently caused with the sleeve of his hoodie. 

Still looking at him with a pained frown, May sighed.

“Oh honey,” she muttered, giving his arm a comforting squeeze. “Are you hurt anywhere else?

“No, it’s just my face.”

It was a partial truth; his ribs were sore from the landing and his side was raw and bruised, but nothing was as much of a mess as his face and even that would be fine in a few days. Well, maybe except his nose, he was pretty sure it was still a little wonky, but considering he’d fallen forty feet and landed face first on concrete, it could have been worse.

Swinging from the webs he’d made fired from shooters engineered from dumpster DVD player scraps wasn’t quite as easy as he’d thought it would be, even with his super strength. 

“How are your teeth?”

“They’re fine.”

“Show me.”

Obediently, Peter opened his mouth, grimacing to show her his unchipped and all accounted for, if a little bloody, teeth and watched as she nodded in approval. It had been a relief to him that they were all there, too; he didn’t think he’d grow one back if he knocked it out even with his healing factor. He was Spider-Man after all, not Shark-Man.

Shark-Man wouldn’t be at all convenient, he realised absentmindedly, and badly supressed a giggle at the thought. 

The split in his lip bled a little at the disturbance, and May frowned and leant forwards again to look into his eyes. Hers were dark and concerned, enlarged owlishly by her glasses and just as clear as he knew his were. 

“Did you hit your head?”

Fighting the urge to raise his brow at that both because firstly, clearly he’d hit his head, his face looked like it’d had a collision with a freight train, and secondly, he didn’t have a concussion even if he was laughing at the inconvenience of being genetically part shark, Peter shook his head.

It hurt his face and he winced, his hand jolting automatically to his sore nose, and May winced too and bent down to examine the mess that was his face again. This time, he allowed her to gently hold his chin as her concerned eyes took in the split lip and cut between his brows and the twin black eyes resulting from his still slightly crooked nose, and then returned the hug she gently pulled him into once she was done.

Her sigh was loud and sad but relieved against his ear.

It broke Peter’s heart to know that this very likely wouldn’t be the last time she’d wince at bruises obtained on a night’s patrol. He didn’t want to cause her pain.

“Come on, lets get you cleaned up,” she soothed eventually, loosening her grip and starting to lead him down the corridor towards the bathroom. “I think all the blood probably makes it looks worse than it is. Well, maybe not your nose, but girls like the roughish look.”

“May…”

***

May decided to make a lemon drizzle cake for his 15th birthday, which, well, he had said she could make whatever she wanted to. Seeing as lemon drizzle had been his favourite last summer, the crispy sour sugar dried on the top was to die for, it kind of made sense that was what she’d chosen, and that would have been great, except since the spider bite, lemon was one of those flavours Peter simply couldn’t stand.

Citrus and peppermint and cinnamon and tea-tree and lavender.

It wasn’t a coincidence that those were the scents the internet recommended for people who wanted to keep spiders out of their homes.

It was insane, Peter would be the first to admit so.

In all honestly though, except for the minty toothpaste problem which Ben solved with strawberry flavoured kids toothpaste when they realised Peter’s sudden dislike of anything mint flavoured was less of a product of his fever and more of a longstanding issue, the alterations to his tastebuds wasn’t too much of an issue.

It wasn’t like he tended to eat lavender or tea-tree anyway, and although he missed orange juice and the sweet cinnamon in gingerbread and the tang of lemon drizzle cake, he could cope.

It wasn’t a problem.

Or it wasn’t until May came home with a box of cake mix and a couple of lemons and promptly set about in the kitchen.

As she baked, Peter sat in his room with a wrinkled nose and prayed for a miracle.

An hour later, the kitchen launched a new assault on his senses, and Peter groaned with relief.

He couldn’t remember a time when the acrid scent of burning and the wail of the smoke detector were quite so blissful. 

***

Spiders, like most invertebrates, can’t thermoregulate. Peter had learnt that back as a kid, but hadn’t really paid much attention to it until the winter after his 14th birthday when it became relevant for obvious reasons.

The thermoregulation issue wasn’t too much of a problem once he realised why he was so cold all the time; he just layered up for school and put more blankets on his bed and made good use of the heater in his suit on the colder nights that came after the airport battle.

It turned out the thermoregulation issue worked both ways though, and Peter would definitely preferred to have known that before he faceplanted the sun-scorched grass during the first PE lesson of the school year.

He woke on the floor to find his head pounding not just from dehydration but from the collision between it and the dried earth too, and when he opened his eyes, he found himself being rolled into the recovery position by Mr Jefferson while a circle of his whispering, giggling classmates watched in interest.

“Stop it, I’m fine,” Peter tried to say, shoving Mr Jefferson’s hands away as he pushed himself up, only for his head to spin and his heart to race and his nauseous stomach to make itself known. 

It was funny how Peter would have thought passing out would be the worst thing he’d do in front of classmates that day, but then he’d thrown up onto the grass and himself and Mr Jefferson’s shoes and that definitely took the cake. 

“Kill me now, please, Ned, I’m begging you,” he muttered a short while later, his cheeks no longer flushed just from the heatstroke but humiliation too as a concerned Ned steadied him with an arm around his waist and escorted him out of the sun and away from his snickering classmates.

He wasn’t sure he was every going to be able to live that down.

Well, emotionally anyway.

Physically it could have been worse, he supposed.

There were definitely worse places he could have been when he’d discovered that flaw with his spider mutated DNA. He reminded himself of that in an attempt to comfort as he laid on the cot in the nurses office with an ice pack balanced on his head and a cool bottle of water in his hand and waited for May to pick him up.

At least he hadn’t been swinging on a web a hundred feet above the city floor.

At least his suit had air con.

***

The apartment smelt bad before Peter was even fully wake, and it jolted him back into consciousness more effectively than a bucket of icy water to his head and left his heart racing and adrenaline flowing in about the same way.

Coughing like he had been dunked, he struggled out of bed with his arm held up to his nose in a vain attempt to block out the acrid sting and stumbled towards his door to investigate.

“May?”

The smell was worse in the hall, bitter and acidic and painful, and he coughed harshly, grimacing as each inhale seared at his lungs and settled on his tongue. It burnt his eyes too, in much the same way the smoke from May’s attempt at oven pizza did. Not that the charcoaled frisbees they’d ended up with could really have been called a pizza, if he was being honest.

“May, are you okay? What’s happening?”

“Peter?”

May sounded just as confused as he felt but not nearly as panicked, and when he looked up through scorched eyes, Peter found her standing casually in the living room beside the couch, a blue can of fly killer in her hand and a wasp curling up on the floor at her feet.

Oh, Peter thought as he huffed a tired sigh from his burning, insect killer filled lungs and tried not to cry, well that was just fantastic.

***

May Parker wasn’t an angry woman. She could be feisty at times, wasn’t easily walked over, but she was fair and normally reasonably calm when it came to parenting. He knew she wasn’t impressed about his new-found inability to keep track of his backpacks, and his recent familiarisation with the detention room wasn’t exactly a happy point between them either. 

She’d panicked the day of the ferry accident when he’d gone missing for hours straight, and he hadn’t been exactly pleased with him when he’d come home from Ned’s the day after homecoming nursing what she thought was a hangover but he knew was a concussion, but she hadn’t really been angry at him either time.

Now though, yeah, she was definitely angry.

Furious, and upset, practically spitting venom as she paced the room and ranted about his warped sense of duty and repeatedly threatened to kill that irresponsible asshole Tony Stark.

Standing in the kitchen in a million dollar suit, Peter tried not to be too hurt by her outburst. He knew she just wanted him to be happy and safe and well, wanted him to be at school dealing with homework and decathlon competitions and teenage crushes, not out saving the city from muggers and murderers and stopping cars with his bare hands.

She just wanted him to be safe, and now she knew that was something he wouldn’t be able to promise.

***

“Do you know what type of spider it was that bit you?”

Distracted by the Lego bricks he was sorting, it took Peter a second to realise what Ned had said.

“What?” 

“Do you know-”

Peter shook his head, cutting him off. “No, I heard what you said, just… no. I mean, it was red and blue and radioactive if that narrows it down. Why?”

There was a bit of a pause before Ned spoke again, his eyes staying fixed on the instruction booklet he was following and what looked to be the hint of a well contained smirk on his lips.

“Do you know some spiders eat their mates?”

“Ned, what?” Peter groaned in horror at where this was going. “No, this isn’t… just no.”

“And most of the time it’s after they, you know, but there’s one type called the nursery web spider that tries to eat their mate before and the males have to present the females with a webbed up fly to distract her with so she won’t eat him instant-”

Ned broke off when a pillow collided with his face, knocking his hat from his head but leaving his smirk irritatingly intact.

If anything, it was bigger, and Peter covered his face with his hands and laid back on the floor in a pile of Lego and wondered how on earth this had become his life.

***

The super healing was amazing, Peter would give it that, especially considering he’d sustained more minor injuries since becoming a masked vigilante than he had in the rest of his life put together.

Well, minor in his mind.

He wasn’t entirely sure Tony or May were running on quite on the same scale; they certainly hadn’t been cool about stab wound he’d come home with the other day even though it had scabbed over already and was well on its way to being healed.

He healed just that quickly.

Cuts became fresh pink scars overnight, scrapes were gone within hours. Peter had broken his nose faceplanting the floor now on multiple occasions since he started his new hobby and it was always at least near enough okay by morning, so really, it wasn’t entirely his fault he didn’t consider there was a problem with just letting his healing factor fix himself up yet again before he tumbled into bed.

“Ned. Ned. Pst, Ned!”

“What?” Ned stopped scratching at his head with the end of his pen and glanced from the algebra books spread out on his desk to Peter who hadn’t even started unloading the backpack he’d just discarded beside his chair.

“I fucked up?” he hissed, glancing over at the bored Mr Blake reading a book with his feet up on the desk to make sure he had as much interest in controlling studyhall as he did in proper chair etiquette. “Like, really fucked up this time.”

Ned’s eyes widened in barely suppressed excitement. “What’d you do? You didn’t crash a ferry again did you? Or bring down another parking lot? Hang on, is it that lizard in a lab coat again? You didn’t fight him on the way to school, did you? Is that why you’re so late?”

“Ned, shut up!”

“Sorry. Sorry”

“Look.” 

Checking no one else was looking, Peter pushed the sleeve of his fading navy hoodie up to his elbow to reveal his wrist. It didn’t hurt much anymore, had done a lot the night before, enough that he’d swallowed a good half bottle of Tylenol to no end effect other than increasing the nausea resulting from his concussion, and while it was no longer dark with bruising or puffy with swelling, that wasn’t realistically much of a comfort.

“Dude, that’s so fucked!” Ned sounded worryingly delighted as he leant over to examine Peter’s recently broken, now healed arm and the third joint he’d been left with just below his wrist with morbid fascination. “What did you _do_?”

“Broke, it obviously,” Peter whispered back, “I thought it would heal.”

Ned looked at it again, his skin a little green and his eyebrows raised as though he’d maybe realised displaced fractures probably don’t realign of their own accord, and then laughed quietly and shook his head. “Yeah, you’re gonna be so fucked when Mr Stark finds out.”

Groaning in resigned agreement, Peter took one last look at his mess of a wrist and then rested his head on his arms.

Yeah, he’d been trying not to think about that.

***

“Mr Stark, is this a really bad time to tell you that normal medicines don’t work for me anymore?”

Mr Stark looked up from the nauseatingly deformed, definitely in need of surgery wrist he’d been studying with a thoroughly repulsed expression, and then leant back in his chair with a groan and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“You are actually going to be the death of me, kid, you know that?”

***

The ceiling light in Ned’s room was much nicer than Peter’s.

The one in Peter’s room was made of paper, like one of those Chinese lanterns one might put a candle in and send into the sky, but fixed to the ceiling instead of flying and made entirely of white in place of red. It was pretty boring, could probably do with changing, now Peter was thinking about it.

Maybe he should change that.

A Death Star one would look cool.

Or maybe a pinata.

Not a real pinata, obviously, the candy inside would melt and May probably wouldn’t be too happy if he made even more of a mess of his bedroom carpet.

It would look cool though, so maybe it’d be worth it.

Idly, Peter wondered if they made spider shaped pinatas and then giggled at the thought.

“Ohh, shit,” Ned groaned from across the room as Peter let out another giggle and tried to throw the last of his mound of Redbull cans into Ned’s laundry hamper from his prone position on the floor. It should have been easy, but the hole was small and Peter was tired enough his aim was just a little off.

Well, maybe a lot of, he revised as the can hit the wardrobe instead, bouncing off and knocking three minifigures and a AT-AT off Ned’s shelf.

Oh well.

“Peter, have you seen this?”

Curiously, Peter rolled over, scattering cans and homework and revision flashcards like confetti as he shuffled across the floor until he could see Ned’s computer screen.

“Dude, those are some fucked up webs,” he exclaimed, eyes wide, “Like ser-seriously, they’re messes. I bet I could do a better job and ‘m not- not even a real spider. Hang on, where are my web shooters, I’m gonna try.”

Ned’s hand clamping tight around his arm stopped him halfway to his feet, and super-human strength or not, he stumbled back to the floor.

“Hey, what was that for?” he asked, rubbing at his side and giving Ned a sloppy sort of glare.

“You’re not going out now.”

“Why not?” Peter demanded, petulantly.

“Because look at these webs.”

The webs were funny, and Peter giggled again.

“What were those spiders, drinked? Drinked?”

“Drunk,” Ned corrected, frowning, “And no, not quite; they were drugged.”

“Drugged?” Peter’s nose scrunched in confusion. “Why… Why would you drug a bug? Or- or not a bug actually, a rach-id? Ar-ach… ar-ach-nid.”

“Yeah, drugged,” Ned said, pointedly, and then indicated to the pictures in turn. “That’s the control, see how it’s normal? Then this one had pot, this one had acid, this one had speed, and this one-” he pointed to a web that looked more like a fractured window than anything spun by a spider- “this one had been given caffeine.”

For a long moment, Peter stared at it, trying to find some sort of importance in what Ned had said, and then his eyes fell on the mountain of energy drink cans they’d made it through that evening while trying to fix the mess that finals week.

Or the mountain he’d made it through, to be more precise, because caffeine, like most other drugs didn’t seem to work properly with his physiology anymore.

Peter looked at the screen again, and then at the cans, and then finally, realisation hit him like a freight train.

Oh. Shit.

***

Despite his ever hungry gut, Peter’s mind was elsewhere than on his food. The school-made lasagne wasn’t awful, better than May’s charred bricks but not a patch on what Ben used to make, and it wasn’t like he wasn’t hungry, he was just… distracted.

“I think I kind of like her?” he sighed eventually, still frowning at the scene across the dining hall and cutting off what ned was saying about… something.

The fork paused on its way to Ned’s mouth, his mouthful of lasagne slipping free as his eyebrows shot towards his hairline.

“Did I hear that wrong or did you hit your head on patrol last night?” he asked, snorting when Peter scowled and knocked and elbow into his ribs.

“Hey, I’m being serious, Ned,” he sighed, giving him another elbow when he laughed hard enough to choke on his own inhale. “I like her. She’s nice, in a scary sort of way.”

“Um, dude, MJ could eat you for breakfast. And me for breakfast. Probably at the same time.”

Peter frowned at Ned, then at MJ as she stuck up a flyer on the noticeboard across the hall, pointedly ignoring Mr Jefferson as he reminded her of the no curses or distressing images on posters rule.

“Yeah, probably,” he agreed reluctantly, pursing his lips, “but she wouldn’t. She’s alright once you get to know her.” 

Frowning, Ned looked down at his still hovering fork and then lowered it to his plate. He was silent for a long moment before a badly contained smirk quipped the corners of his lips.

“Hey, maybe you should present her with a silk wrapped fly to eat to distract her from her from breakfasting on you before you even get a chance to date?” he said oh so casually, and Peter groaned out a long suffering sob and dropped his head onto the table with a tray rattling clatter. 

He probably should have seen that one coming.

He probably should have cared about the lasagne he’d got in his hair too, but oh well.

***

“May…?”

“Yes Peter,” May replied just as slowly, not looking up from her crossword but pausing her pen in exasperated anticipation as she psyched herself up for what was coming. She was getting pretty good at predicting these conversations now, which maybe Peter ought to take as a sign that this had happened one to many times.

“I kind of need a new backpack.”

Without looking up from her crossword, May let out a weary exhale and pointed to the kitchen cupboard where she normally stored the toolkit and a mop and an upgraded Roomba Tony had given them that May insisted was possessed.

Yeah, Peter decided as he retrieved the spare backpack she’d bought in preparation, this was definitely too many times now.

***

As it turned out, the Spidey-sense and healing factor weren’t very helpful on Titan either, and left Peter scared and pained and laying in Tony’s arms as he slowly crumbled into dust.

***

But that didn’t matter.

None of it did, because although sharing a weird proportion of his DNA with an arachnid was mildly inconvenient at times, it definitely had its advantages.

It meant he was fast enough to catch thieves, strong enough to stop car accidents.

It meant he could web up muggers and murders and leave them for the police to arrest for their crimes.

It meant he could save lives.

And it meant, five year after he crumbled into dust on Titan, he could return to a battlefield beside the ruins of a building he would once have counted as his second home and help to save the world.

***

The air was pleasantly cool against his suit as he webbed his way through the city, the wind whistling softly against his ears with the dip of every swing. It was peaceful up in the sky, watching the cars’ headlights blur with his speed into strips of light in the street below and listening to the soft hum of their engines and the quiet, slightly garbled chatter of the usual Friday night nightlife.

There had been a time when he’d have heard it all at once, a mess of voices and stories fighting against the roaring of the traffic, but now it was reduced to more a soft background hum.

It was comforting, the sounds of the city he loved to protect, and often overlayed with the yells of his name as he passed overhead and the occasional requests for a flip.

Usually, Peter obliged, but also usually he wasn’t trying to swing while carrying a paper bag full to the brim with fast food and two very rapidly melting chocolate and peanut butter and salted caramel milkshakes.

“Hey, sorry guys, can’t stop today,” he called down to an excitedly yelling group he presumed to be a bachelor party judging by the number of mankinis being worn as he passed. “Congratulations, on the wedding by the way!”

As he swung away, he could just about hear the group’s disappointed putterings as they made their way to the next bar, but hey, Peter was human, or near enough human, and he had other things on his mind right now.

Or his stomach, maybe.

He knew already the burgers were going to be to die for; Tony always had good taste in fast food, even if it meant Peter had to swing a good three miles out of his way to get it. Even the smell of them wafting through their paper bag and then his mask was enough to set his stomach grumbling despite the two hotdogs and the bag of churros he’d eaten on patrol and the double portion of Pad Thai May had brought home for dinner.

If there was a top personal advantage to the superpowers, Peter thought maybe the endless appetite when good food was on offer would take the cup.

Or maybe the super strength lightening everything bar buildings to a feather.

Or maybe the ability to stick to walls and ceilings like he had his own special source of gravity.

Or maybe the endless endurance that made thwipping his way across an entire city a breeze.

Or maybe the webs, which, well, they weren’t exactly due to his dodgy DNA, but he doubted he’d have been able to fly on them without it.

Peter considered it all as he swung, found himself laughing at the insanity of it all as he walked up the outside of the tower towards the softly glowing windows of Tony’s lab.

Okay, so it was all pretty cool, he’d have to admit. 

Well, most of the time, anyway.


End file.
